According to Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily Blog, the writers’
strike may be over sooner than many expected. Even though talks only resumed on Monday (Nov 26), the word is that Hollywood agents have already done a great deal of work getting a deal ready and
the strike could be settled before Christmas.

Hopefully the agreement will work well for both the writers and the studio moguls.
The math is interesting.Pattern
bargaining means that other unions will get similar deals. The extra cost for DVDs is significant, so a reasonable
balance must be obtained in the deal.

Not much has been said about the cost of video streaming and this is a part of what everyone refers to as
‘new media.’ It is a major issue in the strike negotiations. The WGA says that the studios are making tons of money from
streaming video and the studios say that the videos are promotional. However, the bandwidth costs for
high resolution video must be tremendous.
In a recent article in MacNN,
BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin says that the cost of streaming video over the net is more than 20 cents per
hour per viewer and the advertising revenue per viewer may be less than the cost of streaming. There is hope for the situation, however.
His new product, Bittorrent DNA, promises to reduce the cost of streaming by transferring some of the burden to the viewers’ computers.
Using Bittorrent DNA, people will watch a show on the net and actually rebroadcast parts of the stream to other viewers.
In the future, the cost of streaming video may decrease further if the upload speeds of the typical viewer increase. Unfortunately,
upload speeds are currently too slow for high quality video. For example,
I can watch an enjoyable, but fuzzy TV program when it is rebroadcast from home to my office via a
slingbox.
If my home DSL connection allowed upload speeds of 900 bps or greater, I could probably watch a very clear video on my office computer.
Bittorrent DNA or something similar may actually be the answer to the high cost of video streaming. If the day comes when streaming costs are
negligible, there will be an explosion on online content. Michael Eisner recently commented on
the current status of the ‘new media’ when he stated that a series he made for the net (Prom Queen) only made $2000.00.

Of course, the most important question is: How many episodes of LOST will we see next year?
Not everyone believes that the strike will end soon. Be sure to take a look at some of the references below for more information.
Let’s hope the strike ends soon enough for all 16 episodes of LOST Season 4 to be produced.

More Strike References

TVGuide Writers’ Strike Updates

Javier Grillo-Marxuach

Joel Surnow

The Artful Writer

Writers Guild America, West – New Media

According to Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily Blog, the writers’
strike may be over sooner than many expected. Even though talks only resumed on Monday (Nov 26), the word is that Hollywood agents have already done a great deal of work getting a deal ready and
the strike could be settled before Christmas.

Hopefully the agreement will work well for both the writers and the studio moguls.
The math is interesting.Pattern
bargaining means that other unions will get similar deals. The extra cost for DVDs is significant, so a reasonable
balance must be obtained in the deal.

Not much has been said about the cost of video streaming and this is a part of what everyone refers to as
‘new media.’ It is a major issue in the strike negotiations. The WGA says that the studios are making tons of money from
streaming video and the studios say that the videos are promotional. However, the bandwidth costs for
high resolution video must be tremendous.
In a recent article in MacNN,
BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin says that the cost of streaming video over the net is more than 20 cents per
hour per viewer and the advertising revenue per viewer may be less than the cost of streaming. There is hope for the situation, however.
His new product, Bittorrent DNA, promises to reduce the cost of streaming by transferring some of the burden to the viewers’ computers.
Using Bittorrent DNA, people will watch a show on the net and actually rebroadcast parts of the stream to other viewers.
In the future, the cost of streaming video may decrease further if the upload speeds of the typical viewer increase. Unfortunately,
upload speeds are currently too slow for high quality video. For example,
I can watch an enjoyable, but fuzzy TV program when it is rebroadcast from home to my office via a
slingbox.
If my home DSL connection allowed upload speeds of 900 bps or greater, I could probably watch a very clear video on my office computer.
Bittorrent DNA or something similar may actually be the answer to the high cost of video streaming. If the day comes when streaming costs are
negligible, there will be an explosion on online content. Michael Eisner recently commented on
the current status of the ‘new media’ when he stated that a series he made for the net (Prom Queen) only made $2000.00.

Of course, the most important question is: How many episodes of LOST will we see next year?
Not everyone believes that the strike will end soon. Be sure to take a look at some of the references below for more information.
Let’s hope the strike ends soon enough for all 16 episodes of LOST Season 4 to be produced.

More Strike References

TVGuide Writers’ Strike Updates

Javier Grillo-Marxuach

Joel Surnow

The Artful Writer

Writers Guild America, West – New Media

My brother recently gave me something called a Nabaztag (Armenian for bunny rabbit) for my birthday. It’s a wi-fi connected
bunny rabbit that reads news headlines, gives me the current time and even reads aloud the subject lines
of my GMail messages. Since I have subscribed to Google Alerts related to everything LOST, the bunny is
very very busy and most of the time it just says GOOGLE ALERT! Evangeline Lilly! Apparently, she is
the most talked about LOST celebrity on the net, so we might as well talk about her here too.

Naturally, there are tons of pictures of Evangeline Lilly on the net as well as frequent
Evangeline Lilly sightings, and there was even a reference to a website that allows people to morph two faces into one. I received an alert when someone morphed
photos of Evangeline Lilly and Jared Leto, so I tried morphing a photo of Evangeline with writer Damon Lindelof. Incredibly, it still looks exactly like Lindelof.

There are some excellent Evangeline Lilly audio clips out there, so be sure
to check them out. She’s very revealing about herself, but remains careful not to reveal any real LOST secrets.
I didn’t even know she spoke French!

My brother recently gave me something called a Nabaztag (Armenian for bunny rabbit) for my birthday. It’s a wi-fi connected
bunny rabbit that reads news headlines, gives me the current time and even reads aloud the subject lines
of my GMail messages. Since I have subscribed to Google Alerts related to everything LOST, the bunny is
very very busy and most of the time it just says GOOGLE ALERT! Evangeline Lilly! Apparently, she is
the most talked about LOST celebrity on the net, so we might as well talk about her here too.

Naturally, there are tons of pictures of Evangeline Lilly on the net as well as frequent
Evangeline Lilly sightings, and there was even a reference to a website that allows people to morph two faces into one. I received an alert when someone morphed
photos of Evangeline Lilly and Jared Leto, so I tried morphing a photo of Evangeline with writer Damon Lindelof. Incredibly, it still looks exactly like Lindelof.

There are some excellent Evangeline Lilly audio clips out there, so be sure
to check them out. She’s very revealing about herself, but remains careful not to reveal any real LOST secrets.
I didn’t even know she spoke French!

In a stunning development, anonymous sources at Bad
Robot Productions have revealed that LOST episodes will be written
entirely by robots starting with episode 9 of the upcoming season.

Apparently, the plan has been in the works for quite some time
since it was previously thought completely impossible that simple robots
could carry on the complex business of writing, breaking down scenes in
the editing room and even working with producers. Computers have long been able
to play Grandmaster level chess so it is only natural that they would soon be
writing screenplays for enormously popular television shows. Could this be the
real reason for the name Bad Robot? Have they been planning for a writers’
strike since the beginning?

In a stunning development, anonymous sources at Bad
Robot Productions have revealed that LOST episodes will be written
entirely by robots starting with episode 9 of the upcoming season.

Apparently, the plan has been in the works for quite some time
since it was previously thought completely impossible that simple robots
could carry on the complex business of writing, breaking down scenes in
the editing room and even working with producers. Computers have long been able
to play Grandmaster level chess so it is only natural that they would soon be
writing screenplays for enormously popular television shows. Could this be the
real reason for the name Bad Robot? Have they been planning for a writers’
strike since the beginning?

  Here’s some good news! EW.com
has reported that new LOST material will be released on ABC’s web site this Monday (11/12/2007).These are little
micro-stories that fit into the larger LOST story. The writer’s strike may push the season premiere back
a bit (or even a lot), but at least we’ll have a glimpse
this Monday!

  Here’s some good news! EW.com
has reported that new LOST material will be released on ABC’s web site this Monday (11/12/2007).These are little
micro-stories that fit into the larger LOST story. The writer’s strike may push the season premiere back
a bit (or even a lot), but at least we’ll have a glimpse
this Monday!